What Comes With Summer
by percychased
Summary: She ran away with summer and never looked back. All four seasons come and go for him, and he's farther away every moment. TeddyVictoire.


_What Comes With Summer_

**i. **

Summers came and went, but it would always be that _one _summer that lead to everything else - and it all started with a lionhearted girl who discovers many things and a boy who has always observed.

Her name is Victoire. _Victory, _it means. Born exactly two years to the day the war ended, to two people who loved each other more than anything else on this Earth.

His name is Ted. _Teddy, _actually, he'll correct you. Born less than a month before his parents - both of them - died in the war.

She ran away with the summer and never looked back. The sea, the stars - they were all hers. She could do anything she wanted (and she knew that, too. The whole world was in her hands, really. It was featherlight.)

All four seasons come and go for him, and sometimes he thinks about how far away he is, with every year, month, week, day, second, from his parents, as the leaves fall and the snow melts and flowers bloom. (The world is his, and he knows it. He feels like he's carrying the weight on his own two shoulders.)

**ii. **

She starts school with an owl called Daisy perched on her arm and her parents hugging her goodbye, her mother tearful and exclaiming how much she'll miss her baby girl, and how she shouldn't forget her father's quill that he had given her - "He already told me, mum!" - and joins a compartment with her cousins.

He starts two years before that, with his grandmother's cat in a cage and his godfather sending him off with a smile on his face, a little nostalgic, a little happy - "Have fun, Teddy. Really." - and he tries, he does.

The hat pauses on her head. It sits there for a long time, it does - _what do we have here? The newest Weasley? My, it was just yesterday I was Sorting your father. Plenty brave, yes, cunning, too, and you're quite smart, my dear. Mm, a decision… _- before it eventually decides and yells _Gryffindor! _She's thrilled (her parents will be, too) and she skips, before sliding onto the bench with her new fellow Gryffindors.

The hat is very brief with him, and he isn't sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing - _You are many things, Ted Lupin, but I know just what to do with you, yes, oh yes, this is quite the easy decision we have here! How about… _- it speaks in his mind, and yells out _Hufflepuff! _He's relieved (his mother was a Hufflepuff, too, wasn't she?) and he walks there calmly, uncanny for an eleven year old, with a small smile quirked on his face.

**iii. **

Gryffindor is a perfect fit for her, and she loves everything about Hogwarts. As a first year, the magical world on her own is so enthralling, so different, and she's wide-eyed and astonished the first time she sees Professor Flitwick charm something to fly around the classroom.

Hufflepuff is great - he can't play Quidditch worth anything, but the people were kind and friendly and even though everyone knew him as _Potter's godson, _they were accepting. He feels like he belongs, just a little bit more than usual. And it makes all the difference.

In her first year, he's in his third, and they don't see each other often because even though she's a Weasley and he's Potter's godson - the names practically _go together _- he's older and in a different house.

In his third year, Victoire's in her first. He notices the hatstall she causes, and how everyone goes quiet when _Weasley, Victoire _is called, because she's the first of the new generation, the new Weasleys. He's part of them, too, he supposes, but not in the way that she is.

**iv. **

The first four years fly by in a whirlwind of colours and new people, and now Roxy's in Hogwarts, and so are Molly and Lucy, and James is starting next year… They're all Gryffindors, even shy little Lucy. It is only OWL year when she hits the first bump on the road, and in retrospect, maybe she should have noticed before that not _everything _is going to be perfect.

He's relatively happy, and everything settles into a normal pattern. He has a few close mates, but he's not outgoing, and just lies low. It's the easiest way - he doesn't attract loads of attention. Not like the rest of the Weasley clan does, especially Victoire. He feels bad for her sometimes - never mentions it, though, because he knows how much she hates pity.

There's a boy - isn't that the beginning of all problems? There's a _boy, _and he's perfect, she's convinced he is. He's a year older, sixth year, and he treats her like the princess her mother always told her she was. That fluttering in her chest, the blush on her cheeks - it's all from him, and she's convinced she's in love.

Teddy's an observer - unlike his godsiblings, as Harry calls them, he isn't loud, nor excitable. He sees the arc of her relationship (the whole school does, actually) and the spectacular rise and fall of their relationship, from the flowers in her hair to the mascara running down her cheeks.

**v. **

If she thought OWLs were hard, NEWT classes - sixth year - were a million times harder. Bloody hell, how did her father get twelve of them? She's managing eight - an average number, she's been told - and drowning with the weight of it. Her seventeenth birthday comes and it goes, and for the first time, she doesn't make a big deal out of it. It's so _different, _that is. She feels like she's growing up, and she's wondering if growing up is giving up.

He has a flat in London and a job at the Ministry. A life perfectly ordinary - he's been on a few dates, but really, he's just uncomfortable. It's been six months to the day, almost, since he's graduated Hogwarts, and he feels like he's only grown a little, but learned a lot more.

She saw Teddy at the Christmas gathering at the Burrow - looking back at it, it was the first meeting that made all of the difference. She'd been upstairs chatting with Roxy until Angelina called her down, and he'd gone to escape the noise. She asked him how he managed it.

He wondered what exactly _it _meant. What did it mean? She says _everything. _Growing up. NEWTs. School. People in general. He doesn't have a great response for that. He's always had a mild nature, and he's simple, he thinks. He doesn't know, but he tells her that he's always managed to find a way to deal.

**vi. **

She looks at him a little bit differently after that. Maybe she appreciates him more - she doesn't know. But she looks at herself a little differently - in the mirror, in the way she dresses, in the way she talks, acts. She's dramatic and dynamic, and it's the first time she's ever second-guessed herself.

He notices her differences, too. She's loud and outgoing, unlike him, but while he's very personal she isn't - it's the first time he realizes that she may talk a lot, but it's never about herself.

She comes home for Easter, too, and it's the first time (there were so many _firsts - _she wondered if the feeling of something new would ever change) she feels nostalgia. This is her second-last Easter. This time, she sits next to him on the sofa, and they don't talk, but she feels safe.

He visits for Easter at Ginny's insistence - originally, he was working, but she'd persuaded (more like forced) him to take some time off. He sits on the sofa a little awkwardly - as much as these people were his _family, _he wasn't exactly… like them. He didn't have the outgoing sense of humour (his was hidden) or the loudness that most of them seemed to possess. He's sitting on the sofa for a while when he feels it dips, and she's sitting next to him.

**vii. **

"Are you okay, Vic?" her father asks, and she nods. Yeah, she is. It's just been a long year. She feels like she's learned so much in such a little amount of time. That time is moving forward, every second of every day, and there's nothing she can do about it. That your whole world isn't him - it should never be only one person, because what if you aren't the whole world for that one person?

Teddy sees her. And he notices the change - notices, like he usually does. She talks to him before she leaves for Hogwarts, and it's the first honest-to-Merlin _real _conversation they've had, ever. She tells him that she feels so different, so weird, and she asks him did this ever happen to him?

She listens to his answers. Maybe it's different for everyone, he says. We aren't the same. I'm not the same as you and you aren't the same as me and maybe that's a good thing, yeah? Life would be perfectly boring if it wasn't.

He doesn't know where his response comes from, but he knows that he means every single word of it.

**viii. **

Summer comes, and the feeling of it is wonderful. She's always loved summer a little more than anything else, even when she was a child and the summers didn't reflect on her freedom at all. He's around more, she notices, and it's just then she notices that he's different in a good way. She is loud and closed and self-assured, always has been, and he isn't quite exactly that, and she finds herself liking that.

Summer is just another season, another instance of time moving forward, the Earth spinning beneath his feet. She is around more, and for all the times they could have communicated in Hogwarts but never did, she is great company. He learned something in Muggle Studies in his last year of Hogwarts - a science rule or something. _Opposites attract. _

She appreciates his company. They sit outside on the sand near Shell Cottage, and with a nostalgic laugh she tells him about her fifth-year relationship, and in turn, he explains how he's never lasted past one date. It's just uncomfortable, he says. For every word they speak, she wonders why they didn't talk more in Hogwarts. Hell, she could have used a sensible friend. His skin brushes against hers, and she feels _something. _A little something, and wonders if everything had just been leading up to this moment,.

There's something about her that's different for him. _She's _different. July moulds into August and August closes into September, and with sunrises and sunsets the summer comes to a close, and he's pretty sure he's never talked so much in two months as he has in his whole nineteen years.

When they're on Kings Cross and it doesn't feel like goodbye, not yet, she leans into him and he leans into her and they're both wondering how a whole lifetime of knowing each other could not compare to one summer.

* * *

a/n - For The Quidditch League Competition, using the prompts Story of My Life, lionhearted, and "S/he already told me!" Word count: 1,878.

Also for the As Strong As We Are United Competition, using the character prompt Victoire Weasley, and the Represent that Character and One Million Words Competitions.

Based off of the songs _Dark Blue _by Jack's Mannequin and _Flowers in Your Hair _by The Lumineers. I absolutely loved writing this. Any thoughts? :)


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